


The Typewriter

by notjodieyet



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Mentioned Jack Harkness, Mentioned tensimmrose, Timepetals week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjodieyet/pseuds/notjodieyet
Summary: Rose finds a typewriter and writes a love letter. Dancing & flirting ensue.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Kudos: 10





	The Typewriter

The Doctor owned a big old typewriter and it was located in the far reaches of the TARDIS. The first time Rose had seen it she had lost the bathroom again. The second time, she had lost her room. The third time she set out to find it, specifically, and it took her three hours, but eventually she was standing in that very same room.

It was cramped and small, with notebooks stacked in bookshelves and a window with the drapes pulled closed. The shouts of children playing filterered through the window, but when Rose tugged eagerly at the drawstrings to peek through they refused to come undone. 

There was a painting on the wall, although the corner of the canvas was ripped, of a laughing man wearing a suit and tie. A watercolor painting was pinned next to it of two stick figures on orange grass that looked like the work of a child. Rose wondered if it was the Doctor’s child, or somebody else’s.

The main event, though, was the typewriter. It took up the whole desk, and several empty sheets of paper were inserted into it. The front shone as if it was brand new, but the paint on the rest of it was chipped and scratched. There was even a pair of initials scratched on:  _ TM  _ and _ JG _ . Rose made a note to ask the Doctor what they meant later.

For now, she sat down in front of it and rested her fingertips on the keys. They were cold to the touch, although the rest of the room was rather warm. 

Rose knew it was a bad idea to type anything. And she hadn’t  _ meant  _ to. Her fingers started moving of their own accord, whether from some alien pull or simply her own absorption with the typewriter itself, and she started to write.

_ Doctor, _ she wrote, because it  _ was _ his typewriter. She thought.  _ Doctor. I like your typewriter. _ Now, that sounded like an innuendo, but it wasn’t as if there was any delete.

_ Remember when we were in the forties? The first time we met Jack. And you said you couldn’t dance, but that wasn’t true. Or was it true, and you really did remember at the end of things? _

_ I’ve always thought you were just making it up. That you were jealous. It doesn’t matter anymore. I doubt you remember. (Do you remember anything, from the man you once were? Or is it just bits and pieces?) _

_ I liked dancing with you. You said it as a metaphor. I like that dancing too. I mean, I like you. I like you a lot. _

_ But I liked the actual dancing, when you twirled me around and my heart caught in my throat. I wonder if I fell in love with you then. I think I’d been falling in love with you since you took my hand that very first time.  _

_ The Master said you’re a very difficult person to love. I used to think he was right about everything, but I think he’s wrong about that. You’re a very easy person to love. I don’t think I can ever stop. _

_ I’d like to dance with you again. Put on some music and twirl you around. _

_ Rose. _

Rose wasn’t sure how a typewriter worked, but with some fiddling she tugged the paper out of the machine. She folded it up and stuffed it in her back pocket. 

She’d find some way to give it to him, she thought.

* * *

Rose ended up leaving the letter by the Doctor’s head late at night, while he snored into the pillow and muttered something about the Academy.

She couldn’t help but return to the office again that day, and she discovered her response, handwritten in messy script, sitting on the typewriter.

_ My dear Rose Tyler: _

_ I’m glad you like the old thing. You can have it if you’d like. It wasn’t mine, anyway — it was the Master’s a very long time ago, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.  _

_ I remember the forties. I remember Captain Harkness, as well. I’m sure you miss him but I, certainly, do not. Perhaps the two of you should go out and engage in activities Captain Harkness is fond of, such as fornication and alcohol and getting into trouble.  _

_ I liked dancing with you as well, Rose Tyler. I think…  _

_ It doesn’t matter, anyway. But I’m happy I met you. I’m happy I know you. I’m happy I… _

_ I’m happy I love you. _

_ I would like to dance with you very much, in both senses of the word, but especially the traditional one. I have a few records I think you’ll appreciate, assuming that your taste in music is similar to the Master’s, which I believe it is. How do you feel about Taylor Swift? Do you know about Taylor Swift, at all? _

_ Meet me on the bridge. _

_ When you’d like. _

_ The Doctor, with love. _

Rose smiled at the note, and then giggled, and then smiled. The Doctor made her feel like a schoolgirl with a crush, and she would hate it with anyone else, but with the Doctor it was charming. 

She considered typing something else up. 

_ Dr: I don’t know where I’d be without you and I don’t want to know.  _

She folded that up and stuffed it in her pocket. It wasn’t for him. It was a reminder. 

Rose went to the bridge.

* * *

The Doctor was waiting there, leaned up against the console and leafing through an old, paperback book. “Hello,” he said, without looking up.

“Hey,” said Rose.

He leaned over and flicked a switch on the console. Piano started playing. The Doctor set aside his book and extended a hand. “My dear Miss Tyler?”  
Rose blushed. “Yes?”

“Shall we?” 

Rose took his hand, and let him pull her close. Their foreheads were nearly touching, their breaths mingling, and they gently swayed back and forth. “Is this Taylor Swift?” Rose murmured.

“Yes,” said the Doctor. “The Master really likes her.”

Rose nodded. “It’s nice, I guess.”

“You really don’t know her?”

“Maybe a little?” Rose stood on her tiptoes to touch their noses together. He darted forward to touch their mouths together, too gentle and quick to qualify as a kiss. “Hey!”

The Doctor smirked. “You liked our typewriter, then.”

It was impossible, sometimes, to be a part of the Doctor-Master relationship. They were always  _ thinking  _ about each other, always _ talking  _ about each other, always dreaming about their next scheme-and-foil and dinner date. It was impossible, but moments like this, with the Doctor’s mouth quirked up and  _ Taylor Swift _ playing in the background made it all worth it. 

“I liked it,” Rose admitted. “I liked all of it. Who is…”

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Nobody. All of it is nobody.” He swooped down and kissed Rose on the lips, properly. “Nobody is anybody anymore,” he said, which made very little sense. The Doctor made very little sense all the livelong day. He was a regular Mad Hatter.

Rose nodded. “Well then. Teach me some footwork, will you?”

The Doctor opened his mouth to begin, and then said sheepishly, “ _ Real _ footwork, right? This isn’t a… another metaphor?”

“No,” said Rose. “Real footwork.”

“Alright. Put your left foot back. Good. Step to the right —  _ very  _ good!”

“I can’t be very good already.”

The Doctor shrugged. “You can, I guess. Incredible human you are.” 

“Incurable flirt.”

“Incurable…  _ incredible _ human being.”

Rose laughed and collapsed into the Doctor’s arms. “Well, you’re an incredible  _ Time Lord _ .”

“Now, there’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”

They stood there together until the next song began, silent and adoring and incredible. It was all they knew how to do, really. 

* * *

Rose found herself in the typewriter room again only the day after. She sat down in front of it, flexed her fingers, set them on the keys, and wrote —

Nothing. Nothing sprang to her mind the way her love letter had. There was no magic in the machine after all, just her own stubborn brain, and now there was nothing there. She couldn’t think of a single thing to put down on the page.

_ Jackie. _

Oh. Now that was a start. 

_ I miss you lots. The other day the Doctor and I danced in the console room. You would’ve liked the song…  _

Maybe there was such a thing as a magic typewriter, Rose thought. Except this one wasn’t it. 

She thought about love letters and dancing and Jack Harkness and Taylor Swift and  _ TM  _ and  _ JG _ and how she was sure that they weren’t nobody. She thought about the Doctor, who  _ was _ an incredible Time Lord, and the Master, who probably was too. She thought about the stars. She thought about fornication and alcohol and getting into trouble.

But mostly she thought about her mother. 

And she wrote. 


End file.
